Open data and its usability: an empirical view from the Citizen’s perspective

Government legislation and calls for greater levels of oversight and transparency are leading public bodies to publish their raw datasets online. Policy makers and elected officials anticipate that the accessibility of open data through online Government portals for citizens will enable public engagement in policy making through increased levels of fact based content elicited from open data. The usability and benefits of such open data are being argued as contributing positively towards public sector reforms, which are under extreme pressures driven by extended periods of austerity. However, there is very limited scholarly studies that have attempted to empirically evaluate the performance of government open data websites and the acceptance and use of these data from a citizen perspective. Given this research void, an adjusted diffusion of innovation model based on Rogers’ diffusion of innovations theory (DOI) is proposed and used in this paper to empirically determine the predictors influencing the use of public sector open data. A good understanding of these predictors affecting the acceptance and use of open data will likely assist policy makers and public administrations in determining the policy instruments that can increase the acceptance and use of open data through an active promotion campaign to engage-contribute-use.     

Studies in the photodimerization of the diglycidyl ether of 4,4′-dihydroxychalcone

In order to elucidate the reaction mechanism involved in the photocrosslinking of epoxide resins containing the 4,4′-dioxychalcone functional group as part of the polymer backbone, the behavior of the monomeric model compound, namely, the digylcidyl ether of 4,4′-dihydroxychalcone, when subjected to UV irradiation has been studied in some detail. The initial photochemical reaction is trans-cis isomerization to a photostationary state, the trans/cis ratios in this state being wavelength dependent. This is followed by a slow dimerization to dimers of the truxillic and truxinic type, the products being mainly formed from the trans isomer under our conditions of irradiation (λ = 350 nm). GPC studies on the irradiated products also reveal the formation of low molecular weight oligomers. Irradiation in the solid phase resulted in the conversion of 37% of the reacted monomer into polymer, whereas irradiation in the solution phase led to 23% of the reacted monomer being converted into low molecular weight polymer. A slow depolymerization of the dimer into the monomeric chalcone is also believed to occur on irradiation at 350 nm.     

Teams and their Motivation for Business Process Reengineering: A Research Note

When business process reengineering (BPR) is undertaken, one of the requirements leading to its development and implementation is that of teams. There have not been many publications about the teams that are formed for undertaking BPR. This article addresses the theoretical issues surrounding such teams and attempts to provide an understanding of the role of motivation in such teams. Furthermore, an overview of the research process that is undertaken within the article is presented.     

Fractal self-similarity measurements based clustering technique for SOAP Web messages

The significant increase in the usage of Web services has resulted in bottlenecks and congestion on bandwidth-constrained network links. Aggregating SOAP messages can be an effective solution that could potentially reduce the large amount of generated traffic. Although pairwise SOAP aggregation, that is grouping only two similar messages, has demonstrated significant performance improvement, additional improvements can be done by including similarity mechanisms. Such mechanisms cluster several SOAP messages that have high degree of similarity. This paper proposes a fractal self-similarity model that provides a novel way of computing the similarity of SOAP messages. Fractal is proposed as an unsupervised clustering technique that dynamically groups SOAP messages. Various experimentations have shown good performance results for the proposed fractal self-similarity model in comparison with some well-known clustering models by only consuming 31% of the clustering time required by the K-Means and 23% when using principle component analysis (PCA) combined with K-Means. Furthermore, the proposed technique has shown “better” quality clustering, as the aggregated SOAP messages have much smaller size than their counterparts.     

Zinc-Blende MnTe Under Pressure: Structural,Mechanical, and Optical Properties from Ab Initio Calculation

We present first-principles studies of structural, mechanical, and optical properties of zinc blende MnTe using the pseudopotential plane-wave method within the local density approximation. The effect of hydrostatic pressure on investigated properties has been examined and discussed. At zero pressure, our results are found to agree reasonably well with those reported in the literature. The generalized elastic stability criteria showed that the material of interest is mechanically stable in all the studied pressure ranges. Applied pressure is found to shift all optical spectra under consideration, giving new optical parameters.     

Rhythms and plasticity: television temporality at home

Digital technologies have enabled new temporalities of media consumption in the home. Through a field study of home television viewing practices, we investigated temporal orderings of television watching. In contrast to traditional pictures of television use, our evidence suggests that rhythms across households play an important role in shaping television watching. Further, we found a flexibility and openness within the patterns of television viewing that we refer to as “plasticity.” Our data suggest that plasticity and rhythms co-exist and together compose the qualitative experience of domestic television time; an understanding of both aspects of temporality suggests an approach for the design of future television technologies.     

Making sense of rework and its unintended consequence in projects: The emergence of uncomfortable knowledge

To make sense of the rework phenomena that plagues construction projects a longitudinal exploration and mixed-method approach was undertaken to understand its causal setting and why it remained an on-going issue for organizations contracted to deliver an asset. The research reveals that rework was an zemblanity (i.e., being an unpleasant un-surprise) that resulted in: (1) project managers ignoring established organization-wide procedures and, at their discretion, amend them to suit their own goals while denouncing the importance of recording and learning from non-conformances; (2) a deficiency of organizational controls and routines to contain and reduce rework; and (3) an absence of an organization-project dyad that supported and promoted an environment of psychological safety. A new theoretical conceptualization of error causation that is intricately linked to rework and safety incidents is presented. The research provides managers with “uncomfortable knowledge’, which is needed to provide insights into the determinants of rework that form part of their everyday practice.     

Load-sensitive dynamic workflow re-orchestration and optimisation for faster patient healthcare

Hospital waiting times are considerably long, with no signs of reducing any-time soon. A number of factors including population growth, the ageing population and a lack of new infrastructure are expected to further exacerbate waiting times in the near future. In this work, we show how healthcare services can be modelled as queueing nodes, together with healthcare service workflows, such that these workflows can be optimised during execution in order to reduce patient waiting times. Services such as X-ray, computer tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging often form queues, thus, by taking into account the waiting times of each service, the workflow can be re-orchestrated and optimised. Experimental results indicate average waiting time reductions are achievable by optimising workflows using dynamic re-orchestration.     

Permeability Estimation of a Reservoir Based on Neural Networks Coupled with Genetic Algorithms

This article has been retracted.